Like a drone flight over an alien landscape, this film from Minneapolis medical animation studio Hybrid reveals the strange beauty and intense detail of the world inside a tumor, with some scenes requiring the rendering of over 10 million cells.

Jeff Johnson, senior CD/Founder: “This animation delves deep into the tumor microenvironment (TME) — a complex cellular domain in which a tumor resides. This project emerged from both our enthusiasm for bringing scientific and medical concepts to life and our ongoing commitment to embracing the latest cutting-edge tools.

“We used this project as a benchmark for what we can accomplish using Houdini and Redshift. Using the flexibility of Houdini’s procedural tools, efficient instancing of Redshift proxy geometry sequences, and Deadline for distributed rendering, we were able to use the full power of Houdini, rendering a massive scene of over 10 million cells of various types.

“The goal for this animation was to show the diverse cell composition of the TME and highlight the newly-formed vasculature. These vessels not only sustain the TME with oxygen and nutrients but also provide a route for tumor cells to access the bloodstream and potentially metastasize to distant sites.”
 
 

 
Production: Hybrid Medical Animation

Music: Cosmo Lawson “Astral Travel”